Buffalo-based artist, Elizabeth Leader, has a strong affinity for the places and objects that most of us pass on the street without even a glance. For Leader, the blank windows of an abandoned house or a discarded and dirty child’s toy are simply pieces of a story that has been lost in time. Her work takes on the task of gathering these pieces from the past and stitches them back together. In doing so, she simultaneously assumes the roles of historian, urban explorer, and social commentator.
By combining discarded elements of our consumer culture and pairing the objects with photographs of abandoned home and businesses, Leader sets before us the bitter truth of our often-fragile economy and constantly shifting desires for the next and greatest thing. In many cases she must hunt out this truth in the hidden or forgotten places within our urban landscape. She travels to these empty but not always uninhabited spaces, like an archaeologist exploring the crumbling ruins of a long vanished society. The irony of these expeditions is not lost on Leader given that she often sets foot in places that were thriving homes, shops, and factories only a few years or decades ago. This helps to explain the style in which she works and why she chooses to juxtapose elements like found objects against images of the places she has visited. What Leader proves with all of this is that there is still a lot of life left in the objects that our society has otherwise cast aside.
Elizabeth Leader Website https://elizabethleader.com/